As darkness fell we headed to a place called Quiera Clearing in the Morton N.P, it was from this point that we started our search of
Ettrema Gorge. I’d never heard of this gorge and in the dead of night I had no
idea of what lie ahead. It was after 10pm before teams headed off into the bush,
however I chose to stay at our staging area and act as “SES search Commander”
since I was the senior person on site. Little did I know that I’d end up
coordinating the search teams for the next 48 hours through some horrendous weather
conditions.
Wednesday night quickly become Thursday morning and I found
myself sleeping on the front seat of the car. Rain had fallen overnight with fog
and cloud making visibility of less than 100m. Our search response was growing quickly,
portable comms was trucked in and search teams came and went as their
availability dictated. The inclement weather showed no signs of improving, if
anything it got worse as squally thunderstorms moved across us. I felt for the
teams who were out walking in it, my makeshift command post quickly became the
front seat of the car due the deteriorating weather. I certainly wasn’t prepared
for the role of coordinator, I had no paperwork or documentation to support the
role, but I did the best I could.
The media had got wind of the incident and were now circling
for a story. By late afternoon on day-2 a glimmer of hope emerged as the
missing bushwalkers contacted Police via the emergency app. Our search teams
rallied to a possible location while a helicopter out of Nowra was tasked to
the search area. Search teams finally made visual contact with the walkers but
just as the rescue plan was implemented the weather closed in putting pay to
any helicopter retrieval. The walkers would have to spend another night in the
wilderness, but at least they were located and in good spirits.
